Brendan's blog

The Flackenhack video

Brendan — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 16:04:39 +0000

OK, so I know I’m taking a blogging sabbatical but I’ve been asked to put this up:

Enjoy. I’m not in it.

This may be an ex-blog

Brendan — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 15:29:16 +0000

In case noone’s noticed, I haven’t posted for nigh on three weeks now. I’m not sure why this is – I just seem to have stopped.

I started the blog around last Christmas as part of a ‘Things I Must Learn About’ list, which also included stuff like RSS, aggregators, wikis and the like. Since then I have indeed found out a lot about them, and much more such as Yahoo Pipes and Google Docs, although I haven’t really been able to put much of this knowledge to practice in my professional life. I’ve also been very lax with updating the Social Media Resource, which never really took off anyway, and especially the PowerPR index which was fun at first but is now quite a bind.

So I’m wondering whether I’ve learned enough now, and whether this blog has come to its natural end. Since stopping posting my readership has plummeted, although curiously my subscriptions have climbed! As with so much in the blogosphere, this makes no sense. I’ll let it continue in its current form because at least the feeds churn out content, which some people have found useful, and the Social Media Resource might find a home some time.

So, this is just by way of explanation. I might get the bug again soon, but in the meantime this is Friendly Ghost signing off for a while. I might concentrate on the music again, or turn my attention to something completely different.

Oh, and I may as well come clean – my real name is Brendan Cooper, not Friendly Ghost. I really am a copywriter (for the time being) and I really do work in PR (ditto), but I can’t tell you who I work for because my company’s policy on personal blogs forbids association. How uncool is that?

Regards
Brendan aka Friendly Ghost

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And if you thought the ‘Exploding Colour’ Sony Bravia ad was cool…

Brendan — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 14:32:51 +0000

… check this out (first seen over the weekend):

Here’s some background to it:

“A team of 40 animators spent three weeks choreographing the models to create the 100,000 still images required to produce the 60-second ad.”

Yes, that really is clay-mation. It’s by Fallon, they of the other Sony Bravia ads, Cake Skoda and Cadbury’s Gorilla. The Sony ads are particularly interesting from a PR point of view because they are totally open to the public during filming and in fact that is integral to this advert. People take photos, show interest, and blog about the ad’s creation before it even hits the screens (which means I’m probably dreadfully late to this). Then the video that comes out of this process is perfect for viral YouTube-type treatments.

So is this PR, or advertising, or both?

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Not going to the Flackenhacks

Brendan — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 10:03:03 +0000

It’s been a while since I last posted – the longest hiatus bar holidays in fact. This is quite simply because I haven’t been able to think of anything interesting to say. Or it could be a worrying sign that I’ve learned all I needed to learn from blogging. My blogging is flagging. My posting is lagging. My blog-fu is sagging.

Which brings us in a pararhyme-about way to the Flackenhacks. I won’t be able to make it because I stupidly double-booked myself to see Russell Howard tomorrow (he of the cheeky schoolboy humour from Mock the Week). So, if anyone’s reading this, say hello to TWL from Friendly Ghost for me.

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Not going to the Flackenhacks

Brendan — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 10:03:03 +0000

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Not going to the Flackenhacks

Brendan — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 10:03:03 +0000

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A double-decker bus is this big

Brendan — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 21:25:36 +0000

A perennial problem in copywriting is trying to convey sizes, lengths or weights. So something is 348 metres long. Great. Try making it real in the reader’s mind. How about we say it’s the equivalent of nearly 42 double decker buses?

The marvellous chrico Double Decker Bus Calculator is your key to unlocking this particular problem. Simply type in your amount, your ‘convert from’ units and your ‘convert into’ units, and you’re off.

So, suddenly, I know that it takes 178.954903 double decker buses to make a km; that the distance from Lands End to John O’Groats is 0.00252 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon; and that you would have to line up nearly 170 Friendly Ghosts end-to-end to make a blue whale.

It also has the fantastic footnote on the ‘about‘ page:

If at any time you get a message similar to the following: 1 square inch is equivalent to 0 Australias (to six decimal places).; an error has not occured – this has happened because the amount of Australias in a square inch is sooooooo small that it won’t register with only six decimal places.

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Sieving through the mud to find gold

Brendan — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 22:21:54 +0000

It’s easy to overlook the search terms people use to find your blog. But instead of discarding the ’weird’ entries, take another look: you might pick up on an emerging trend.

Often, when looking through the search engine terms that have been used to find this blog, I’m confused. Why are so many people looking for information on ears? What is it with Eric Sykes? And crack babies?

Today however, two entries made sense, and one of them in particular revealed an interesting use for these terms.

Firstly, and unsurprisingly, Marion Jones. I posted about her yesterday. I would have expected some people to be looking for her.

But the other stood out, not least because it was the second highest term both today and yesterday: Doc Martens. I wrote about the beleagured boot brand some time ago, reacting to its tasteless advertising campaign and media backlash, so there is one post on this blog about it. Why should people be searching for it though?

Google News reveals all: looks like Doc Martens is making a comeback. This tells me two things:

Tasteless though the campaign may have been, it worked. Goes to show that perhaps any publicity really is good publicity.
You can discover trends by examining the search terms people use to find your blog. If, by definition, people are looking for it, then there must be some buzz about it. In this case Google Trends doesn’t back up the Doc Martens finding (there’s a slight upturn but nothing major). It could still be too early to plot and in any case is just a sanity check. Don’t discount it: you never know, you might get in on a developing trend at the beginning.

I predict a surge in Doc Martens sales. But then again, I was wrong about the ad campaign…

Technorati tag: PR • Add to Google • Add to Bloglines • Add to Technorati • Share on Facebook • Subscribe by RSS • Subscribe by email

Sieving through the mud to find gold

Brendan — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 22:21:54 +0000

It’s easy to overlook the search terms people use to find your blog. But instead of discarding the ’weird’ entries, take another look: you might pick up on an emerging trend.

Today however, two entries made sense, and one of them in particular revealed an interesting use for these terms.

Firstly, and unsurprisingly, Marion Jones. I posted about her yesterday. I would have expected some people to be looking for her.

Google News reveals all: looks like Doc Martens is making a comeback. This tells me two things:

Tasteless though the campaign may have been, it worked. Goes to show that perhaps any publicity really is good publicity.
You can discover trends by examining the search terms people use to find your blog. If, by definition, people are looking for it, then there must be some buzz about it. In this case Google Trends doesn’t back up the Doc Martens finding (there’s a slight upturn but nothing major). It could still be too early to plot and in any case is just a sanity check. Don’t discount it: you never know, you might get in on a developing trend at the beginning.

I predict a surge in Doc Martens sales. But then again, I was wrong about the ad campaign…

Technorati tag: PR • Add to Google • Add to Bloglines • Add to Technorati • Share on Facebook • Subscribe by RSS • Subscribe by email

Sieving through the mud to find gold

Brendan — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 22:21:54 +0000

It’s easy to overlook the search terms people use to find your blog. But instead of discarding the ’weird’ entries, take another look: you might pick up on an emerging trend.

Today however, two entries made sense, and one of them in particular revealed an interesting use for these terms.

Firstly, and unsurprisingly, Marion Jones. I posted about her yesterday. I would have expected some people to be looking for her.

Google News reveals all: looks like Doc Martens is making a comeback. This tells me two things:

Tasteless though the campaign may have been, it worked. Goes to show that perhaps any publicity really is good publicity.
You can discover trends by examining the search terms people use to find your blog. If, by definition, people are looking for it, then there must be some buzz about it. In this case Google Trends doesn’t back up the Doc Martens finding (there’s a slight upturn but nothing major). It could still be too early to plot and in any case is just a sanity check. Don’t discount it: you never know, you might get in on a developing trend at the beginning.

I predict a surge in Doc Martens sales. But then again, I was wrong about the ad campaign…

Technorati tag: PR • Add to Google • Add to Bloglines • Add to Technorati • Share on Facebook • Subscribe by RSS • Subscribe by email